


Vision of Gold

by HathorAroha



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HathorAroha/pseuds/HathorAroha
Summary: Moments after the light clears, replaced by sunset gold, Lumiere sees himself and Plumette now transformed into household objects.





	Vision of Gold

It happens so fast in a great brilliance of white, blinding light, like the sun itself had dropped into the ballroom. This bright, white illumination is not in a hurry to fade away, and he squints to see through what appears to be a world decked in illumination. Slowly, with seeming eternity, the white light dims, but the eerily empty ballroom seems decked in a perpetual sunset. Anywhere he sets his eyes upon, he sees it haloed in soft light. The chandeliers silent and unlit are embossed in gold. The elaborate window frames and even the once-lurid artwork appear to be coated in layers of shining, dusky sunlight. The abandoned throne, the harpsichord that wasn’t there before, even the footstool lying near its feet, seem decked in sunset. It is as though the colours of the world had been washed away, leaving only a mist of golden light behind.

 

Looking down, he sees his shoes, his legs, all of him shining in gold. His waistcoat, cravat, vest, everything is decked in gold. He should have been unable to move, but he can move his body with ease, as though it were still blood and bone, not metal and alloy. He moves as though life still runs in veins that are no longer there. He should have felt heavier, like his limbs and own body weighted him down, and yet he feels as light as his own human form.

  
When he lowers his arms to push himself to an upright position, the floor flickers and bristles with light sparking off marble, and with dawning horror, he sees his hands have become candlesticks, flames burning perpetual on two single fingers of wicks. He raises a—hand?—candlestick?—to his head, a metallic clang ringing out as he moves his arm up—his head shouldn’t be that tall, that shape—hot wax flowing down a metallic wrist. He can sense that his wig, his face, his whole head has turned stiff with gold like the rest of his body. The wax running down an arm should have burned him, caused him to shake it off in reflex, but the viscous wax soon runs stiff, cooling and drying on the gold lapel of his equally golden waistcoat.

  
He senses something moving toward him over the floor, feathers brushing on polished marble, as though a servant was sweeping up the remains of a night-long party. A chill—or was that only because he was now made of metal—goes down his spine before he even looks down to see what it was that had caught his attention. A feather-duster, decked all in white but for the crown, eyes, and tiny beak of a peahen, is floating in his direction.

  
Feather-dusters aren’t supposed to move on their own, he thinks, before spotting the wings stretching out in graceful curves, fine feathers spreading out, embossed in shining soft yellow light. He isn’t sure if her feathers are truly embossed with a halo of sunset, or was it his own vision, eyes now embossed in gold like the rest of him?

  
It is peculiar: he feels he should know this feather-duster, someone so dear to his beating heart—or was it stone still in his brass chest, encased in golden silence?—a beloved who was to him the literal definition of “beauty”. Her grace, voice, face, arms, the way she gazed deep into his eyes when they swayed in time to courtroom music.

  
There’s a voice, her voice, his Plumette’s whisper.

  
“Lumière?”

  
He looks around, trying to find her, but not a soul has moved except for the feather duster that now lifts itself up, spreads its wings, flying toward him.

  
“My love, it is I, Plumette!”

  
He stares at the feather duster floating before him, so close he could have touched her, and he nearly does, only to remember his “hands” are now lit candles. An ache swells in his heart, burrows deep into his own soul.

  
“Oh, Plumette,” he whispers, arms still reaching for her, the ache in his soul sharpening into a shard of longing embedded in him, “What has become of us?”

  
“The enchantress,” she whispers back, her voice steady, but still trembles with a faint note of emotion, “She has done this to us.”

  
They both flinch as a terrifying roar reverberates through the castle, staring over in the direction from where it had come. It came back to him now in a rush—the enchantress, the flash of light, the prince’s screams of agony, no-one able to help him as he turned into a monstrous beast. The panicking, the screams, the running, the absolute terror thick in the air.

  
Without giving another thought to it, Lumière swept Plumette carefully into his arms, much too aware of the flames on his candles’ wicks. She does not pull away in the least, just leaning into him, a wing sweeping up to brush against the side of his face, caressing over his features to rest on his shoulder, her peahen face looking straight at him, as though to gaze into his embossed irises. He leans in toward her, as though to kiss her tender, but his metallic lips refuse to form the kiss he so wished to for his beloved.

 

_I cannot even kiss my beloved._

  
Nonetheless, he stays close to her, arms protective about her now fragile and tiny form, now painfully more so than her human form. But he knew she had strength deep in her, a light of hope that refused to burn out.

  
“We must keep our spirits up, Plumette,” he murmurs, “We will be human again, I promise.”

  
Plumette sighs, her wings winding around his shoulders, and it is not the same—never will be the same as when her own human arms held him in the past. Yet, her warmth is there all the same, her unfailing devotion.

  
“Promise, Lumière?”

  
“Promise.”


End file.
